Public Enemy Finally Make Enough Money From Their Fans To Make A New Album

Well, it only took a year, but finally Public Enemy have raised enough fan donations to fund a new album. Since last October, the group have been trying to raise cash directly from their supporters via the Sellaband website, which lets fans invest in their favorite artists and then rewards them with swag and a share of the album profits.

After initially setting the goal at $250,000, Public Enemy then dropped the mark down to a more reasonable $75,000 when they lost a bunch of investors. According to the site, which is based in Germany, they have now raised €59,100 -- that works out to just over $82,100. In a blog post, Public Enemy called the experience "a long and winding road":

We've had explosive starts, media attention, corporate troubles, media criticism, recalculations and finally resurgence. When its all said and done, the bottom line is that we never lost faith in ourselves, our fams and the future of fan funding as a model.

It's definitely an interesting experiment, but I'm still pretty far from convinced that this is the future of album production.